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Happy Sunday!

The road ahead is a bit uncertain. As I had mentioned earlier, preparation is going to be the key. A popular adage of all athletes is, “You earn your medals and win your races in the practice. You go to the event only to collect it.” Right now, you’ve got a lot of time to practice. This is the worst time to slack off and let go of your skills.

This is the most crucial time in all of our lifetime, a truly once in a lifetime opportunity. Let’s make the best of it. Everyday lost in upgrading your skills would eventually require double the time to get back to your original efficiency. As I’ve mentioned before, this is the perfect time to pickup a hobby, build a side-business, or start a podcast or a YouTube channel. Don’t let this opportunity go.

For a lot of us, the last few days have been “different” and for many, it has been “unsettling.” A lot of us are working from home, and I think that we should be thankful and grateful for it. WFH is a privilege for us. We got lucky. For millions of others, the lockdown has resulted in loss of work and income. They are most likely staring at a prolonged period of inadequacy in terms of livelihood. At the very least, let’s look at the lockdown as a sort of community service—not a mandate. We shall overcome! Here’s a piece of art to motivate you.

That said, now is the time for your weekly dose of multidisciplinary reading to upgrade your thinking and decision making. And if you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe here.

📝 What I Wrote

The Limits of Our Knowledge: Why Only a Few Know How to Avoid Bad Decisions

Previously I had written about how to really know something. In today’s essay I discuss the opposite—the importance of knowing what you don’t know. This is perhaps one of the most important skills you can develop, and this knowledge is something that would help you immensely in NOT making bad decisions.

Investment is one of the few domains that heavily rely on the future. You are likely to blow up if you are cocksure and make the wrong decisions. I use the world of investment to drive the idea of knowing the limits of your knowledge home, hence this article might be a bit technical for some people. But this idea is something that is equally applicable in other areas—be in brain surgery, sports, betting, or business. So I sincerely request you to give it a go. Hope you’ll enjoy. And if you’ve got any feedback or ideas, don’t hesitate to write to me.

📑 I Enjoyed Reading

Chandrakant Sampat: A Man of Value And Wit — “Shakespeare never had any heroes in his plays. Take the best ideas from all great thinkers, from great investment giants, from all the disciplines and then connect for yourself. Think for yourself and reach your own conclusions. And don’t just stop there, open up your mind and think further, think deeper.”

Five Techniques for Chasing Your Unanswered Callings — “I think of a calling as a topic or cause that I simply can’t get out of my brain. It’s something I feel so pulled towards that I can’t let it go and that I feel dissatisfied if I can’t find an outlet to exercise it.”

The list of all the articles I’ve written can be found here. And the past three editions of Sunday Wisdom are here: 32, 31, and 30.

📹 I Enjoyed Watching

Panchayat — Panchayat is a beautifully made series created by TVF for Amazon Prime. It’s one of those rare works that has relatable characters and a well-paced story. Panchayat captures the Indian village life and depicts its people very well. It’s mildly humorous which adds to the fun. I thoroughly enjoyed it. “Panchayat is a comedy-drama, which captures the journey of an engineering graduate Abhishek, who for lack of a better job option joins as secretary of a panchayat office in a remote village of Uttar Pradesh.”

Why Martin Scorsese Loves Improvising — “On a Saturday afternoon in 1974, Martin Scorsese payed a visit to his parents. And he took a film crew with him. The result is the absolutely wonderful documentary Italianamerican. During his visit to shoot the film, Scorsese learned something from his parents that would change his directing forever.”

The Dark Side of Baby Yoda — “The Mandalorian’s Baby Yoda is cute and there’s no denying it. But why do you want to bite his adorable little nose off?”

Why Blue Whales Don’t Get Cancer — “Cancer is a creepy and mysterious thing. While we tried to understand it, to get better at killing it, we discovered a biological paradox that remains unsolved to this day: large animals seem to be immune to cancer.”

🤔 Worth Thinking About

These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.

— Rumi

As always, if you’re enjoying Sunday Wisdom, I’d love it if you shared it with a friend or two. You can send them here to sign up. I try to make it one of the best emails you get every Sunday, and I hope you’re enjoying it.